All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.
Robert MckeeRead
Good story' means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. Finding this is your lonely task...But the love of a good story, of terrific characters and a world driven by your passion, courage, and creative gifts is still not enough. Your goal must be a good story well told.
Interpretation
A good story is one that resonates with others, but telling it well is essential.
This quote emphasizes the importance of not just having a compelling story to tell, but also the skill and artistry required to convey that story effectively. While the passion and courage behind a narrative are vital, the true measure of success lies in how well the story is presented to the world.
In practice
This quote can be used in a writing workshop to inspire participants to focus on both story and storytelling.
All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.
Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.
Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.
Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.
We rarely know where we are going; writing is a discovery.
Whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion...Life on its own, without art to shape it, leaves you in confusion and chaos, but aesthetic emotion harmonizes what you know with what you feel to give you a heightened awareness and a sureness of your place in reality.
I can never get over when you're on the beach how beautiful the sand looks and the water washes it away and straightens it up and the trees and the grass all look great. I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.
Film is this incredible medium that allows us to feel empathy for people that are very different than us and worlds completely foreign from our own.
A good writer should be able to write comedic work that made you laugh, and scary stuff that made you scared, and fantasy or science fiction that imbued you with a sense of wonder, and mainstream journalism that gave you clear and concise information in a way that you wanted it.
A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.
Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life? I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep, and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.
Into the street the piper stepped, Smiling first a little smile As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while. And the piper advanced And the children followed.
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